Not my typical post

I am blue today. I found out a classmate of mine died. Well he didn't just die he actually killed himself, which is even worse. He was 49 years old. He had two children, and I honestly don't know what else what going on his life. I went to high school with him. Paths crossed here and there but not often, he had a different life than I do and you lose touch. But it saddens me, as if there was something I could have done. There was this weird cryptic message in the memory book the paper puts out. It was about the nine of swords. I looked up the Tarot card for that and it was very dark. It saddens me that he took his life and it angers me that he did so leaving two children behind. I am pretty sad at the moment the anger portion is kind of on hold. I am somewhat numb from the shock of it.

Things I have learned

I learned how to do this. Now this may not excite you but for me its big....

I have wanted to do holiday avatars for a long time, oh say a year even and I finally did it. I have no experience with layers and such I just kind of guess. I looked up a holly graphic and I got the holly one and played with it, and then I found the candles and santa hat. So here is my final product. I have a holiday Ravatar. Yeah me.

What excites me?

First let me say this is G rated blog, so what excites me isn't exactly gonna knock off anyones socks. BUT if you knit, you may understand that of which I speak. I just learned the alternate cable cast on. This is EXCITING!!! I love Ravelry. I love the shared knowledge of the knitters there, I love the free patterns, I love the learning experience......... and learning a new knitting thing is just awesome. (mind you I still view myself as a knitting novice) I see these new knitters tackling projects that would blow my mind. But it isn't that I don't want to do these things, I view my knitting as a social thing, being tied down to an intricate pattern is not all that practical. I spend a lot of time with a cousin of mine. I do try to interact with her, and following a pattern closely would be difficult to say the least, and interact. (hey I can barely chew gum and walk).
Anyway the Alternate Cable Cast On rocks. Color me excited.

Color

I remember when television was black and white. Thank God those days are over. Life is full of color, and I enjoy it. But sometimes it can be confusing. Like in the selection of yarn for a project. Now my basic wardrobe is black, not goth just black. Mostly black pants. I do wear a sweater with color in it, mostly one color at a time. I am cautious about wearing florals... for instance. I am not a small woman, so I do not want to assault people with large flowers on my body or assault myself for that matter. OH and bye the way, who the hell makes the clothes for larger women. Some of that stuff is just freakin frightening. Exceedingly large butterflies on blouses, ummmm please give me a break. BIG FLOWERS, yikes..... yikes and more yikes.

So I go into the yarn store and yarn is arrayed in all its glory, beconning to me BUY ME BUY ME. BUT what color do I buy. Well in yarn it isn't black. I don't much care to knit black, its hard on the eyes. Hey what do you want, I am running fast toward 50 and damn I can't slow the clock down. Well I do like RED, GREEN, BLUE, I have even taken on Orange as a color. I know I Hated orange for years. Now its all good. Well perhaps not hunter orange, or criminal orange, but pumpkin, well thats a lovely shade.

Well the other thing that kind of blows my mind is sock yarn. I LOVE SOCK YARN. I love the colors, I love the texture and MOST OF THE TIME I love the way the person who dyed the yarn or the company that dyed the yarn did the arrangement of colors. There is always an exception to the rule. I bought a sock yarn from a company that makes lovely yarns, but the colors annoyed me together. I know I have issues. I knit, and thought well it will improve, I knit some more, it didn't. I hate the sock, I gave the sock to Barb who finished knitting it and its mate and sent it off as a donation. Gone from my sight, not even in my projects on Ravelry. Be gone sock that gave me the fidgets. Someone somewhere loves that sock I am sure. IT WASN't ME.

My Life

I did this post yesterday about Barb and I. Barb and I lived in the same house when were children, we are three years apart age wise. Our parents shared a house, we had the upstairs, and her family had the downstairs, and we didn't think there was anything weird about that at all. Of course it was the sixties, while the rest of the world was doing hippy dippy things we just shared a house and our grandmother lived seven houses down the street from us with our then batchelor Uncle Ralph. Barbs mom and my mom were sisters, unfortunately both are gone now. My mother lost in a baby boy in 1955, and Barb was born the year after. Her mother had a son and a daughter already, so she didn't really mind if my mother (I haven't appeared yet) kind of took over with Barb. I came around in 1959 and Barb and I were inseparable.. WE fought like cats and dogs, and I have issues to this day about Barbie dolls. Barb was always saving hers for her children , it really got on my nerves so I ummmm abused mine. Not to worry the kid down the street actually liked them better than I did and he secretly played with mine. Someone had to like them, so he did.

My mother passed away in 1967 which was of course horrible and a while later my father remarried and I moved away. Now I only moved a matter of blocks away. (this is Pittsburgh remember) we love our towns and boroughs and tend to stay put. I am again living in the house I moved to in 1969. The thing was, now that they had parted us , we only wanted to be together again. We have been close all this time. Barb and I have gone through phases, we did crochet, we did cross stitch, we did an assortment of things. So Ken her husband is right when he talks about the phases, however the knitting thing well I am afraid its more of an obsession than a phase. I happen to think it is okay, I mean look we could be drunks, we could be always looking for that next drink, instead we look for yarn.. When was the last time you heard of anyone causing a fatal accident from yarn fumes? No one runs a ribbon campaign against knitting and driving, (as it happens I am incapable of this I really do need to focus on knitting or driving) I do not combine the two. My worst offense may be looking at yarn purchases at red lights. Well again, Who does that hurt? Besides our habit creates lovely woolen things. In my case mostly socks, but I have hit a hurdle. I have become obsessed with creating a hat I can actually wear and not put on a teddy bear or an infant. So far its hats 4 Jane 0. I have made at least four hats , none of which I can wear. But that ends right now. I am knitting with size 10.75 addi turbos making a hat. (oh um part of the problem could be I don't gauge, and I don't really follow the advice of the pattern), Gee you mean that makes a difference....... Well I am starting again from scratch and designing this as I go. Hold me back so I don't decrease too soon...

So hopefully in a day or two I will claim success.

Sunday afternoon with Barb

My cousin and I chat almost daily. There are things to say. Of course my cousin is more of a sister than a cousin, and we both knit and we both knit socks. She has children and grandchildren I have cats. Her husband thinks the two of us are kooks, he is certain this knit thing is a phase, (secretly hoping it will pass) oh well, keep hoping. So it isn't as easy to get together as you would think, there is always something going on in her life and my life so a Sunday afternoon together is a thing to cherish. This Sunday the game plan was to put together an easy supper and have a knit session while we watched Dexter. She got showtime and has been holding off on watching him since I couldn't. I made a brisket she made eggplant parm and we got our chance. It was wonderful. We traded knitted scarves. I made brisket by putting it a glass dish and covering it with Heinz 57 steak sauce and water (the new stuff with Lee & Perrin in it) Yep the whole bottle. I made it the day before and it was pretty damn good. So we watched Dexter in the living room while her husband watched football. We did pause to eat and for a change Barb actually liked something I cooked. She liked the pattern of the scarf I made. The mistake rib and she liked the edges because I alway slip the first stitch. I learned that on a project and normally I do it on all project that have a straight edge unless the design required you do something else to the first stitch. She ripped back the scarf she had started and did it with the mistake rib stitch.


Okay a day later I am reading this ramble and damn just have the energy to make it make sense. So I am posting it as it is... with all its problems.... lol.

Class with Cat Bordhi

Well I broke down and took the class. I thought heck I have her books, I watch her videos, I can do this. I think if you have the opportunity to take a class from her you should do it. She is very nice and there is something about how her brain works in the creation of socks and things that I don't think can be replicated.

I would say I was the odd one there, I was the lone person who began as a crocheter. Most of the women have been knitting since they were 18 (make that 8) years old. One woman brought her entire collection of socks from the Pathways book. They were incredible. I was one intrigued by someone who had managed to retain that many socks and not give them away. I think there is something to be said for that. I don't know if I will ever manage that. Part of the joy of the creation of socks for me, is having someone wear them and love them.

I also hesitate to cast on yet for one of hers. I am currently working on no less than five pairs of socks. Each is rather simple and each of them has a mate in progress. Because I make sure to do toes and heels at the same time before setting the socks down, its not difficult to pick up where I left off. So there is no real thought involved . This is a good thing.

I bought a lovely green colinette jitterbug that probably wants to be a pair of spring thaw socks. I read on her group of a few who are doing it in green and I think that is the ticket. I will wait till until I get at least two of the pairs done before I begin that sock.

I met Julia of Knitterly Things. She had yarn that made me breathless. Beautiful beautiful postively luminous yarn. MUST HAVE SOME OF THAT.... She had on her sweater Cassidy. It was incredible.

More Election stuff.

I knew I was voting Democrat. I originally supported Hillary because I believed she knew the job first hand. I do not apologize for this, I merely state it. I switched my choice to Obama because he was a democrat. I have spent time reading about both candidates so that when I do cast my vote I know that I am making the right choice.

So having read about both Candidates and their VP choices, and their wives. I am feeling really good about my vote for Obama. I am impressed with his relationship with Michelle. They appear to be truly in love with each other. Imagine that.

Obama acts with thoughtfulness of purpose. McCain is a hot head who reacts. Obama respects his wife, McCain called his trophy wife the C word. Obama has a plan, McCain just wings it and plays on the fears of the country.

I think many people are coming to recognize that the honorable Senator from Arizona, needs to go back there. I am sorry Arizona, but you elected him, you deal with him.

I would vote for CHANGE tomorrow if I could and be done. President Barack Obama. I like it. I will continue to say it.

Just kind of chatting

I read the Yarn Harlot's post yesterday and I was dismayed.
"The lines are long at security and I did them coffeeless. This makes me double proud- especially when someone in airport line sees the Canadian flag on my suitcase and takes the time out of their own busy line waiting to tell me that I live in a socialist hell that is doomed to failure. I somehow managed, yay verily though I was COFFEELESS, to thank them for taking the time to share. "

People will you chill out! I think the election is getting to folks. I think its time to smell the yarn. Here have a bit of merino wool to hold for a moment. Feel the softness, breathe deeply.

Okay so someone explain to me how the people who claim they are for the rights of the unborn can view the life of a living person and find it to be less than sacred? Let us get through this election and try to be at the very least civil to each other.

Let not our public officials incite hatred. Let the leaders of our various religions preach a message of peaceful discourse. Let us heal this country. And for heavens sake let us not be rude to our neighbors in Canada.

Hmmm I am thinking I need to work on this list.

Okay so I found this list on another blog. I guess its about how literate are you.


1984 by George Orwell
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Ulysses by James Joyce
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Stand by Stephen King
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Trial by Franz Kafka
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Stranger by Albert Camus (in both English and French)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LeRoux
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Light in August by William Faulkner
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Call of the Wild by Jack London
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Well I guess I have some reading to do. I have the book 1984 here. I will admit to finding it boring. I know that isn't very literate of me. But this book is hard for me to read somehow. Now its not as bad as the Russian novels, they are really tough for me. I put in italics the ones where I have seen the movie. Some of which I do not plan to read.

THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Well here he is. I hope and pray that this will be the face of the nation come November 5th, and more specifically come January 20th, 2009. I hope the American people can step up the plate and elect a Black President of the United States. I wish the people who see abortion as the only issue would wake up and smell the coffee. Obama is the face of the Change, the republicans haven't had an original idea since wow, I couldn't tell you when. Sarah Palin is the offering to Women voters who couldn't have Hillary. Let's face it, she is NO Hillary.

Mr. McCain may be a war hero, but he is republican through and through. We aren't faring well with them at the helm. Sorry sir, but you cannot have my vote. Thank you for your service to our country. Moving on.

So whatever your alligence is, DO VOTE. But don't not vote for a man because of the color of his skin.

Wicked

Well last evening we went to Wicked. It does not disappoint. I will say it took me a while to like the Good Witch. She reminds me of one my cousins on my father's side. I hope she isn't into reading blogs, lol. But she had that same kind of voice, that little girl voice, that lingered long after it was cute. Drove me a bit nuts.

I went with a posse of relatives and friends, but honestly once the musical began I could have been in OZ. I was held captive by the music and the play.

My other cousin Barb has seen Wicked twice, once in Chicago and once in Buffalo. I have never seen a musical anywhere but Pittsburgh but the Benedum Center is beautiful and I have no complaints. I had decent seats. Not the front row but fortunately on the aisle and that meant a bit more room. We had Carmen Rose with us and she loved it. She got Wicked tickets for her Birthday, as did her mom.. Speaking of her mom. Lisa was quite the entertainer. We were stuck in the parking garage for a long time, so I put in my cd of Broadway musicals, well Lisa got possessed when Ease on Down the Road came on and jumped out of the van and did a little dance in the garage. Carmen was a bit embarrassed by the display, but it was very entertaining for all who were trapped in the long waiting line.

Election and socks

Meet Avatar, he came to me as a kitten but he was already named. He is my first house cat. I mean he is a house cat because he is not permitted to go outdoors. He would love to be outdoors but he really isn't all that brave and he is declawed.

He is a somewhat crazy cat, he had a thing for shoes. He is very into playing with things, mostly things that aren't his to play with, but he does like some of his toys. In my somewhat biased opinion he is a beautiful cat.

That said, I move onto the election. I am so dreading this fall and the onslaught of commercials. I am tired of the campaign, I want to vote and be done with it. I want Obama to win and the Democrats to be in the White House. I am tired of the sillyness of the election. I am tired of the Republicans in office. Okay I voted for Hillary, I can't have her. I am over it. Let's quit crying over it. It's time we just elected the designated hitter and move on.

Similar Cats

Crazy Aunt Purls Cat - Sobakowa My Cat - Princess Tipper Pukes Alot

When I got PTPA (or baby kitty) I thought wow what a strange looking cat... Of course then I thought oh my god what a beautiful cat. Its funny how pets grow on you. I think she is quite lovely and she is a Princess and she tips over unattended glasses and she pukes frequently, I think she is bulemic if that is at all possible. Once a week she does this purge thing. Then its done. I guess we all have issues even cats. She does like to keep her girlish figure and she is a garbage can. She will attempt to eat anything including embroidery on clothing.

When I first saw Sobakowa I realized that my cat was not entirely unique. I am new to the cat thing, so forgive me for not knowing this. I read her stories of Sobakowa and thought it sounded a great deal like my baby girl. She rules the roost. She is the Alpha Cat amoung two males. They tolerate her and move aside for her. She is the Princess after all in training to be Queen.

Change happens

Well it just so happens I get a kick out this button. I haven't taken any sock in progress photos as of late so I offer you this.

We all have trolls in our lives. Those people who seek to dismiss or diminish the things we have done. My trolls are those who say silly things to me like "WHY DO YOU ONLY KNIT SOCKS? " Okay you get a button. I happen to adore socks. Since the moment I created a pair I was hooked, addicted, and hopelessly lost to the world of socks. I am happy making them, I am pretty sure the world will be better for a few pair of my socks warming the feet of the Sock Worthy folks in my life.

I do on that rare occasion knit other things, like a baby surprize jacket, here and there. I have a few other items that are on my TO KNIT list. However knitting socks is a good thing.

New Blog

So I have changed Blogs to this one. The other blog I had opened up one of those annoying pop-ups and just made me nuts. I am potentiallycrazy enough without that.

So here is my 3rd Baby Surprise Jacket, which no longer looks like this. I washed in cold water with that wool wash stuff and still it bled like there was no tomorrow. So the white areas are pink now. It doesn't look horrible, but it isn't what I wanted. I mean if I wanted the accent stripes to be pink, I would have used pink yarn.